Think Twice
by Hikari no Chibi
Summary: The Queen is dead, long live the Queen. Sequel to "The Persistence of Thought."
1. Think Twice

When you're temporarily isolated and bound to a chair, it really gives you time to think.

Belle hadn't counted on appreciating that so much; she certainly hadn't appreciated her prison in Storybrooke. However, in the wake of her horribly jarring encounter with Dr. Rush, her time on Earth was a blessing. For the briefest second, she thought she'd died and gone back to her Rumpelstiltskin. Realizing it was a glitch in the FTL… death might have been easier.

And now the only thing she could do was wait. So, Belle took what she did have – time and a brain – and she started to process everything.

It would be easy to scream at Rush, or put Greer and Young on his case, but Belle kept the peace. Rush, for his part, was the same as he'd always been.

After a few weeks, it was Rush who finally spoke first. "Belle, I think I owe you an apology…"

"Don't," she said. "We both know you're not sorry. Come on… there's something that I need you to see."

In her quarters, Belle showed him her only remaining photograph of Mr. Gold and he had the decency to look ashamed. It was easy to talk to him when he was speechless. She could forget for a while that his voice wasn't quite right, or that all he ever said to her was techno-babble. So Belle talked, and told him that her husband was the only man she'd ever been intimate with. Explained what she'd thought when she'd woken up naked in his bed.

"So, you see… it's not that I never thought about it. I just… it's hard for me, seeing you here every day." Then she leaned in to kiss him, and his hand pushed her away.

"Belle, Mandy is…"

She didn't need to hear the rest. "I'll make you a deal, then. I never take my monthly leave with the stones, Colonel Young just drops me in whenever we need medical support or a specialist to supplement one of the away teams. I'll take it from now on. Command will let me switch with Dr. Perry, Telford owes me one."

He looked at her, measuring. "And in exchange?"

Belle just grinned.

It was nice. Not perfect, but nice, which was good – because Belle found the fantasy addicting. She couldn't have stopped, not even if she wanted to.

He shaved, put on a collared shirt, and they did their best not to talk too much. The first time, he'd moaned the other woman's name. After that, Belle made sure to keep his mouth busy. If Rush resented her for proposing the trade, he kept that to himself. She doubted he minded very much. They both got to pretend for a little while, and then he got the real thing for a couple of days. In her opinion, the deal weighed heavily in his favor. Rumpelstiltskin would call her the spirit of generosity.

Sometimes, though, when all she wanted was to be held and smell the old leather of Rumpelstiltskin's flamboyant wardrobe, she'd send him away with his "debt" unpaid. He never complained.

A hundred million light years from home, Belle finally found within herself to forgive the person she'd hated most. She could thank Rush for that, in a round-about way. It stilled her, a little, to think of that other woman. But, as surely as Belle still lived and breathed and made her deals with Nick, she could finally face down her demons.

It was empathy. She knew now what drove otherwise kind women to be unkind. Out of every sentient being in the universe, Belle felt herself most kindred to the single person she hated most. And, as much as that scared her, she had a burgeoning respect for a fellow survivor — even if that woman was the Evil Queen.


	2. Think Again

_The heart of darkness calls._

Belle didn't know why it was so important to her, all she knew was that she had to have it. She couldn't do magic - never could. Wasn't even sure if magic really existed in this world, though the technology made a fair imitation of it most days.

But this magic was older than time, and if it worked… she had to try.

While TJ was distracted and Lt. Scott was wrapped up in comforting Chloe, Belle reached out to the metal dish holding the alien tracking-device. The bastards had embedded it directly into Nick's chest.

He would be fine, and was still heavily sedated. No one noticed a thing, and Lt. Scott crushed what was left under the butt of his pistol. Things could go back to normal again.

Except Belle didn't like normal. Normal was a sick imitation of a life she'd once known, where the man in her bed was not her Mr. Gold. He was in love with a mind, and she a ghost.

Back in her quarters, Belle felt almost afraid. She'd made her choice, though, and she pulled a small box from the bottom of her duffel bag. Inside was a cup — just an ordinary cup — with a small chip along the rim. Time to break away from destiny and reclaim her own fate.

Maybe, she thought, dropping the small knot of Nick's stolen heart-tissues inside… maybe she could reclaim something of what was lost, like that other woman had in another life.


	3. Thinking of You

_Sight unseen._

To her horror and fascination, the thing is growing. Or, she thinks it's growing. It's not drying or rotting or gathering weird alien dust mites, she knows that much at least. It looks a little bigger, maybe a bit brighter somehow. Like a garnet or a ruby.

Holding Rumpelstiltskin's tea cup is her only solace on the nights when she doesn't have Nick to keep her company. Belle thought it would help, keeping him near by, but it doesn't really. He's different enough to ruin her fantasy every time he opens his mouth, and there's no sly hint of love in his eyes.

When she holds it, she can remember his face – down to every wicked laugh line. And, with her hastily taken scrap of Nick's heart gently glowing, she begins to hope that one day he will laugh with her and look at her the same way.

No magic can bring back the dead. Nothing. But if Nick would love her she might learn to be happy again, and Belle desperately, direly wanted to taste her happy ending.

Mandy comes more and more frequently now. Belle suspects that Rush is fabricating reasons to bring her back on board the ship. Almost every week she inhabits Belle's body, at least for a few hours. What they do together is a mystery, and she's scared to approach Eli to request the Kino footage. In the end, he approaches her. Eli, bless him, is scared that she doesn't know what Rush is doing with her body while she's strapped into a wheel chair on Earth.

The Kino is its own curse. They look so happy it makes her hurt; she wonders when the last time she smiled like that on her own was. A long, long time ago, probably. Is this what it's like to have a Magic Mirror? Seeing things know will hurt, but being unable to look away – the problem is, nothing can ever be un-seen.


	4. Think it Through

_Oh, irony._

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Finally, the day comes when Telford cannot pull the strings on Earth for Belle. Command wants to speak with the Lucian Alliance girl, Ginn, and Rush says he genuinely needs Mandy's help.

It makes Belle sick with jealousy, thinking about what the two of them might do without her. Kissing Mandy, touching Mandy… when it's her body, somehow she passes the time. She's never had to watch them together, first hand. The Kino feed makes her choke back bile, and she sends Eli to fetch Rush to the bridge just in time. Eli won't let anything happen as long as Mandy's in Ginn's body. He _won't_. Hell, he even thanks her for the assistance. Poor, hopeless Eli.

When she sees Simeon on the prowl, Belle plays the part of the helpless civilian and arranges for her radio to malfunction. He shouldn't be out without a chaperone, but then – she shouldn't use the Kinos to prowl and spy. A man like that is better left to his own devices, as far as she's concerned.

Then everything falls to pieces – Rush is inconsolable, ruled by malice. He's going to hunt down and kill Simeon planet-side, because Simeon is the man who strangled Ginn's body. Simeon is the man who killed Mandy. Belle is powerless to stop him from trying, so she does everything she can to help Chloe override the ship's FTL drive.

Panic is the emotion of the day; it disguises many things. No one would ever look at her the same if they knew she was relieved that her number one competition was no longer alive. But then… there's no incentive for Rush to stick to their deal, either. Yes, panic is good. Don't let them see you cry.

Rush comes back. He's killed a man today. They don't speak, he can't even look at her this time.

Belle thinks this is her lowest moment since Rumpelstiltskin died, but she's wrong. When she holds his cup, the old warmth is gone. That's worse than anything. His face isn't as clear as it used to be. The cup used to nearly over-flow with memories of him, but now it's just an object – simple porcelain and paint. And Nick's heart… Nick's heart is bigger and blacker than it's ever been. He's a killer now, and whatever magic remained in that old chipped cup has forever bound him to her side.

It's what she wanted, she supposes. Nick will come to her when she asks, because she has the only bit of his heart that's still alive. It makes her sick to think that a shadow of a shadow is her destiny now. And that's all it will ever be – an empty cup, a chipped heart, and a memory.


	5. One Last Thought

**One Last Thought**

_The parameters are flawed._

Nicholas had noticed the subtle changes in himself. He thought, at first, that it was just the hollow ache of an old man who'd lost the woman he loved. He thought, somehow, that the bittersweet taste of revenge had left him vaguely healed but with heavy scars.

He'd stayed with Belle. It seemed the natural thing to do, after everything they'd shared. She could understand loss, regardless of their twisted sexual history, and for that he was grateful.

Of course, that was before Mandy came back. His Little Miss Brilliant, the ghost in the machine. When Mandy said they could be together, really together, without borrowed bodies or stolen time, he'd downloaded himself into Destiny's memory banks without a second thought.

But now? Now he was stuck here, because for all that she calculated every detail of the simulation, dear Dr. Perry had made a mistake. It would work, she said. It would work, but only if they loved each other. That the parameters were not satisfied told her everything she needed to know.

He insisted he did love her. He wanted to love her. But ever since he'd gunned down Simeon in the desolate waste, Dr. Nicholas Rush had not loved anything. Not Mandy, not Gloria, not _Destiny_… It might be easier just to slip away.

From the outside, Belle saw him lying in the interface chair, trapped in his own body and living perpetually in a fantasy of his own device. She had no True Love's Kiss to offer him. It would all be up to Eli, and Eli — it seemed — was going to make his own sacrifice to set Dr. Rush free. All magic came with a price.


	6. Thinking Clearly

_See you space cowgirl..._

Belle was faced with an impossible choice. Continue with Destiny to another galaxy, indefinitely; continue being hollow and empty, with only the shell of Dr. Rush for company. Or...

Facing down three years in a deep freeze, knowing that they could run out of fuel and drift for a millennium – those things were frightening. But even more terrifying was the thought of a glass coffin, and knowing that she had no True Love who could kiss her awake. She would gladly seal herself away for a thousand years, if she thought Rumpelstiltskin would be there at the end of the journey. But he wouldn't. And she wasn't sure she even wanted to see him, knowing what she'd become.

She wasn't Chief Morale Officer anymore; she wasn't anything. They didn't need her on board _Destiny_, not really. But they did need a volunteer. Eli had already given up everything – in saving Rush from the interface chair, he'd had to sacrifice the memory files of both Dr. Perry and his own love, Ginn. Their files were quarantined, away from the ship's main computer, and they faced an eternity of loneliness and slow data degradation. Compared to that, the asylum in Storybrooke was nothing – a summer breeze, a piece of cake.

But they did need one less person to put into cold storage. They were short a coffin, and neither Eli nor Rush could repair it before the life support had to be cut.

She did volunteer. They knew she had no chance of fixing the broken stasis pod, but it meant that everyone else could survive. Eli wanted to take her place, but Young wouldn't hear of it. They needed Eli, if they wanted even the slimmest hope of returning home some day.

She and Rush didn't say goodbye – there was no need, and it was a shame to waste anymore good oxygen on their heartless charade.

So this was it. Day thirteen of fourteen, approaching midnight. The life support would cut out soon, and then she'd slowly fade. Belle seated herself on the observation deck, with eternity stretching out before her, clutching a chipped cup and an old photograph. Nick's heart was not among her precious things – she's left it behind in a box under her bunk. He could take it back when he woke up, if he was lucky.

As the air thinned and her mind clouded, she thought she heard him – "Hello, dearie. What took you so long?"

_Fin._


End file.
